About the author

Meet Kim, a 27 year old epicurean pur sang. She likes cats, loves day dreaming and adores red wine. Her quest in life is to constantly look for Amsterdam's hidden gems and become a walking encyclopedia of Amsterdam's best spots.

A while ago I wrote about my visit to Blom & Blom, two brothers from Ilpendam who are collecting forgotten artefacts from abandoned factories in Eastern Germany. I visited Kamiel & Martijn at their workplace; their parental home in Ilpendam. The barn served as a workshop, they had built another barn to store everything and one of the rooms in the house was used as an office. Last week they moved out of their parental home to open their very own store.

The two brothers found a perfect spot, where they could have their workshop, office and showroom all under one roof. Where else but in creative North Amsterdam they found an old garage in a little industrial area. For three months they rebuild and refurbished the whole place into a nice and tight, but industrial shop. All their restored lamps and furniture are beautifully displayed. Everything is positioned perfectly in relation to everything else in the shop. Every artefact is telling its own story, but makes a beautiful whole together with its fellow artefacts. You can see that they are creative craftsmen with an eye for perfection. The whole store and every detail is telling the Blom & Blom story.

The Blom & Blom story

Three years ago Kamiel was living in Berlin. One day he walked in one of the many old abandoned East German factories to make some pictures. Besides pictures he also took one of the old lamps and restored it back home. He got so many positive reactions from friends that he decided restore more lamps. A couple of restored lamps and some good talks with brother Martijn later Blom & Blom was born.

Together they discovered the unique stories about the factories they visited and learned more about the different types of lamps. They decided to make a passport for every lamp, which tells you everything about the lamp and his history there is to know. So every lamp comes with its own unique story. The Blom brothers are really passionate about what they’re doing and the passports are an outcome of that. But the most fun part of making the passports must be coming up with a name every time. They named all their ‘babies’ after animals, so when you visit Blom & Blom you’ll see lamps called Baby Mussel, Jesus Christ Lizard and Double Unicorn.

Every opening deserves a party. The Blom & Blom opening was a real Berlin vrijmibo. The drinks (Budweiser and Fritz Kola) were cold. The camp fire was burning. The store has this Berlin atmosphere; young, creative and raw. The location refers to industrial Eastern Berlin. And as every perfect vrijmibo should have, there was enough food. There was a huge BBQ with juicy bratwursten mit sauerkraut. Hopefully they will organise one like this more often!

So take the ferry and exchange Amsterdam for Berlin for a brief moment. Take a look at the beautiful industrial artefacts and let Kamiel and Martijn tell you some more about the unique story behind every piece.

Blom & Blom Store

Where: Chrysantenstraat 20AOpening hours: Tue – Sat 10.00 – 18.00Online: Website (hover over the pictures of the lamps to turn on the lights!)